Do January Returns Bode Well for 2013?

Stocks have surged out the gate. We look at 116 years of market history to find out what that means for the rest of the year.

Spoiler alert: The "first five days of January" indicator tells us nothing about how the stock market will perform in 2013.

I know that's disappointing, since the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.7% over the first five days of this year, and the Standard & Poor's 500 did even better, gaining 2.2%. Wouldn't it be nice if such gains translated into increased odds of an up market for the rest of the year—as, indeed, many...